Old Turtledoves

Think.. ``` Think, Sakiya. Think of us growing old together.. When you called out, I would forget my rheumatism, The rugs and carpets I walked on towards you would stretch out. Maybe you would knit huge booties for my feet, Maybe I’d be taking a few blood pressure pills, Wait, am I roleplaying? What is happening, I don’t get it It’s as if I’m angry at this stagnant life, As if I’m enraged by this stillness. Let there be a sound, please, just a sound.. Thankfully, I heard your voice, “Is the coffee good?” Let me answer before your question hangs in the air, For my answers do not know how to fly. “It’s wonderful, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had..” Look at us, right like this, face to face. Age sixty-five, Every day something from the past crosses our minds, And on that day, you have honored this ruin with your presence, Don’t stand there, come and sit for a while. I was just saying “think,” Think of us growing old together. Drinking coffee on a retirement pension. By now, however wet our towel got, that’s that. We are past pleasure, we have reached spiritual maturity. However much our brows have sweated, That is how much coffee we have brewed. A station where I rest, quiet but not desolate. I am calm with you. I fall silent sometimes. But if my hair has turned gray, if my tongue has aged, I will criticize everything from where I sit at home; Like how the world revolves too fast and whatnot. Days pass quickly, seasons, years.. The time I will spend with you is dwindling, As if it wasn’t enough that I am aging, You are aging too, your skin wrinkles. I won’t wear glasses either, I’ll just look at you like that. Even if you are blurry, you are young after all. Intending for the times I do not see your wrinkles, You remain younger and more smiling in my eyes.. Your voice cracks sometimes, you are old now, “Don’t worry, I am falling apart too,” I’d say. Even if the joke is cold, let your smile warm up a bit. Warm smiles suit you, neither too much nor too little.. And we would have grandchildren, rows of them, We would liken them to our children’s youth, Then we would understand their innocence. How beautifully we would envy those bright children. We would long for innocence through them, for becoming childlike, One to be a grandfather, the other a grandmother, then dust to dust. And their children will never even know our names… We will be forgotten.. The world was a visit; the dream ended and vanished with you.. The shorter the better, they say, but you weren’t in the calculation, When you were there, every hour, every minute stretched out.. Never mind now what is better, These years I spent trying to be reasonable told me: Live! Live something before you die! That’s why I became such a reckless old geezer. While you remained like a fine, aged wine.. While I was moss-covered seawater, Sharing your breath sweetened me. Ah, the years.. How quickly they passed. The end of the road is visible now. Look at these mountains and plains we have crossed. While enduring all that torment, it never crosses your mind That all this road might have a dead end. Now let every moment of mine be a gift to you. In defiance of the years I spent with worldly affairs. I will love more, I will speak more. Should I fail to speak, know that it is not of my doing, After all, when that time came, I would be a white-haired, curly-headed, elderly geezer. Losing my bearing, with Alzheimer’s to boot. My effort not to forget you either: Every morning I would begin the day with your eyes. The night is easy anyway, we would meet in dreams.. It’s when the sun rises that I must not forget you. You come to my mind at dawn, And I love every state of yours all over again. Those times would be the hardest. If I were to forget you at your most beautiful moment… Ah, us, The aged pair of turtledoves. Ah, ah.. Anyway, let’s not stretch it, we are still saplings. While we haven’t rooted deeply enough to forget, Nor grown enough to be forgotten, What is this mystery, I ask you, Sakiya?.. Awaken me from my sleep. The elderly dreams are over. I fell once again into the whim of time. Let us stay in the moment together for a while. Besides, I’ve run a fever. “Will you cover me up?” . To imagine cold days while my inside is warming up.. Old age while young, hunger while full.. What a strange thing this is. There are still 40 years to go.. Now I am young, vital, and a bit mad.. Age 65.. It would be settled and heavy back then, One should not be alone. One becomes desperate for a voice.. Ah you, Sakiya.. perhaps with you to those times.. Do we have the strength to lean a ladder against 66? Let’s say the ladder is fine. I have rheumatism, How do I climb the steps on my own? Thankfully, you are by my side.. Oh, my forty-year epic, Will you be my support? Look, I am completely worn out and ancient.. When one grows old, one cannot look with lust anywhere but the eyes. The hourglass spared nothing but the eyes.. Every other action aged with time.. How quickly the years have passed, haven’t they, Sakiya.. “I think I got too carried away..” “Was this dibek coffee?”